It is an excellent time to be involved in the legal information profession.  Rapid changes in legal publishing, legal informtion technologies, web functionality and the accessibility of information make legal research an interesting and exciting challenge.

Yesterday, I told some law school students that I take advantage of vendor offered training sessions regularly. One of the reasons for this is that there are so many improvements, tweaks, and enhancements that are made to each and every legal research tool that it is very easy to get into habits that may limit the usefulness of your gathering task. Another reason is …

When it comes to deleting text we have just typed, most of us will hit the Backspace (PC) or Delete (Mac) key.

This works, but deleting text one letter at a time is not the most efficient way to correct your mistakes.
Deleting an entire word instead of deleting a single letter is much faster. You can use the Ctrl+Backspace (PC) or Option+Delete keyboard shortcuts to delete the entire word behind the cursor. Remember these shortcuts for faster editing next time you are composing something on your computer.…

 ♫ Zoom Zoom Zoom ♫

A Capoeira song performed by Jibril Serapis Bey.

When it comes to legal services, it seems that many law firms see price as the sole basis for competition.  However from a marketing perspective, price is but one of seven criteria that make up the ‘marketing mix’ for services.  Since legal services are ‘intangible economic goods’ lawyers have to sell the perceived benefits of their services and see how they match up against the needs of the clients.  All other things being equal, clients evaluate services on price.  But this assumes that you are …

♫ All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to tell them to
It’s true… I was made for you

Oh yeah, well it’s true… that
I was made for you…♫

Lyrics and music by Phillip John Hanseroth, recorded by Brandi Carlile.

The beginning of September is always the start of the new year for me.  Perhaps it was so many years spent in …

Today’s Tip was inspired by an email exchange with Anne Bowers of the Northumberland County Law Association Library. Anne and I were discussing how we stay current on trends that affect us as law librarians. As we chatted about our personal current awareness activities, I realized that many lawyers rely on the librarians in their circles to help them stay current.

Consider your options for engaging with librarians for current awareness activities. If you have an ‘in house’ library team, let them help you with:

• monitoring websites
• helping you choose relevant RSS feeds to subscribe to (and showing you how

In just the last few weeks, I have talked to two lawyers dealing with hacked email accounts. In the past year or so, I have seen frauds perpetrated where a hacker hacked into a client’s email account and waited until the opportune time (just as a real estate deal closed) to send instructions to the lawyer (pretending to be the client) on where to disburse funds; and a situation where a lawyer’s email account was hacked and the hacker, pretending to be a lawyer, sent instructions to a client on where to send funds. In both cases the funds went …

♫  Get on your boots and visit the North Pole
Try every sport until you score a goal
Follow the path of a butterfly
Go to Ground Zero and do nothing but cry
We don’t know how much time left we got left in this world
This beautiful world…♫

Lyrics and music by  Nelly Furtado, Rodney Roy Jerkins, Rodney Jerkins, recorded by Nelly Furtado.

Having just returned from my summer vacation, I came across an article on Lifehack.org that struck a resonate chord deep within me.  The article is entitled: The Ultimate Bucket List: 60 Things You Should Do Before …

I like baking.  You gather all the ingredients, put them together according to a recipe and then, if all goes well, you share a tasty treat.  Starting a legal action is a little bit like baking:

• you start with the facts provided by your client (ingredients)
• you put them together according to accepted rules (recipe)
• you serve your claim on the other parties (share)

The recipe for a claim can be tested with a precedent for a pleading.  I was reminded today of how challenging finding a precedent can be. Sources of pleading precedents can be internal to your organization: …

If you frequently dial someone who as at extension, it can be frustrating to wait for the main phone number to connect before you can to enter the extension number, if you can even remember it. As Canadians, we frequently have to enter a number to select English or French before we can dial the extension. What a pain!
You can easily avoid this frustration can with a comma or two. Simply enter the main contact number as you normally would, but then add a comma followed by the extension number (e.g., 4165551234,567). The comma causes a pause of about …

Updated:

A question and some answers came across the CALL-L listserv this week about sources for BC Utilities Commission Decisions.  Like some other tribunals, the commission decisions are not available for searching on CanLII, LexisNexis Quicklaw or Westlaw Next Canada. There is a basic index function on the Commission website, but it was not adequate for the needs of the person posting the question.

Today’s Tip is thanks to the members of the CALL-L list who shared their knowledge with the crowd.

Anne Whelan of Mercer shared British Columbia Utilities Commission Online Document Library – a source that reports …